| European Coalition for Israel initiates Holocaust commemoration event in Brussels |
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Reminds Members of European Parliament of the risk of negligence Brussels, 1 February, 2006 – The International Holocaust Day was commemorated in Brussels on Monday night in the European Parliament in the presence of several high ranking Members of European Parliament and other EU-officials. Though many of the speakers were focusing on the genocide of the past the clear and present danger of Iran and the election victory of Hamas was highlighted as a warning sign for today. - The best way of honoring the victims of the Holocaust is to make sure that the greatest crime of all time is never repeated. But in order to prevent another genocide we need to learn from history and reject the demagoguery of the past. Today, only 61 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camps we hear again the Nazi slogans from the thirties of wiping out the Jews. Only this time the word Jew is changed to Israel when one of their neighbors, Iran, openly asks for the “wiping out of Israel” and their new peace partner Hamas calls for “the destruction of the Jewish state”, said Rijk van Dam on the behalf of the European Coalition for Israel. - The best way to fight modern anti-Semitism is to teach history, Father Patrick Desbois from France reminded the audience. In his teaching there are three pillars which are of crucial importance, Holocaust, Israel and Judaism. Father Desbois, who is an advisor to the Vatican on Jewish relations, committed his speech to the Jewish victims of Ukraine. -“ These Jews were not killed by gas, he said. They were killed by pistols, riffles and sand in close cooperation with the local population. Many were laying in the graves for days before finally dying in the sand.” Today Desbois is actively engaged in identifying the lost mass graves of the Jews of Ukraine. For years no one wanted to talk about the fate of the Jewish people of Ukraine but in the last years Desbois and his team has managed to identify some 300 mass graves by going from village to village to talk with eyewitnesses and ask them about the fate of the Jews who were once living among them. There is believed to be over 1.500 mass graves in Ukraine where close to 400 000 Jews were brutally murdered. - “We killed the root and lost the fruit, said reverend Willem Glashouwer from the Netherlands”, today the chairman of the European Coalition for Israel. He went on saying that “the killing of Jews throughout the history of Christian Europe has deprived us from the soul and heart of Europe. The vacuum which has been created has been filled with new ideologies and new inspirations which does not promise good for our continent, he said referring to radical Islam and other anti-Christian ideologies.” - “Remembering Auschwitz today means standing with the Jewish people and the nation of Israel with unconditional love and to protect their right to their own homeland”, he concluded. The Holocaust commemoration event was organised by the European Coalition for Israel in close cooperation with a hosting committee of Members of European Parliament, namely Jana Hybaskóva, Hannu Takkula, Charles Tannock and Eija-Riitta Korhola. |